


inhale chaos (exhale peace)

by thirteenohtwo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 11:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22191424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteenohtwo/pseuds/thirteenohtwo
Summary: When a connection is formed, distance doesn't matter.Or, some weird-ass sense8 shit with the mighty nein.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 5
Kudos: 112





	inhale chaos (exhale peace)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is, to be honest. But have at 'er, if you want.

It happens all at once.

It also happens in pieces, separate and drifting across enormous expanses of land, across countries and lives, and death itself.

It's one moment, at one point in time, stretched around eight different souls. Simultaneous, and individual. 

It shouldn't be.

But it is.

-

-

-

Caleb feels it first.

Of course, he isn't Caleb right now, not yet - he's a young boy with a life full of promise ahead of him, watching his past burn away.

The light of the fire glints off shards of crystal embedded in his arms. Smoke curls into the air, blotting out the stars and the moon itself, making a dim night even darker. The roar of the flames drowns out the screaming inside, drowns out the words of his classmates, his friends. It even drowns out the sound of his heart pounding in his skull.

He doesn't feel the crunch of gravel against his knees, doesn't feel the rocks digging in - he  _ has _ rocks in his skin, shiny, beautiful, powerful rocks that bleed, and bleed, and bleed. He doesn't feel the heat against his eyes - so wide, unblinking, staring into the heart of destruction.

Witnessing the ruin of his own life. 

He doesn't even feel Eodwulf's hand clamp onto his shoulder.

He's not really there.

Bren is. Bren is trapped in his own body, filled only with the screams of his dead parents in his head. He's stuck and he will be for a while, a long while.

Maybe that's why Caleb stands up while Bren continues to kneel, why he wanders closer to the flames. He sticks his hand into the fire, lets the flames curl up around without feeling their heat. On some level, he's always known he'd end up here.

Broken.

Screaming on the inside.

Trapped in his own echo.

"Fire seemed like a mercy," he says. The noise cuts out, the roaring of the flames, the blood pumping in his ears, the others' voices. It's all snuffed out at once, until it's just him. Just his voice. Lost, in a stretch of nothing. "People think it takes forever to burn to death. They're wrong." He blinks, and the fire dances back in his eyes. "It's quick. A minute of screaming and then they're gone. Nothing left. No body… no hope of bringing them back. It's - clean."

The bloody barbarian stares at him from across the burning ruins of his childhood home, his family home. Bright orange flicks between them, the flames lick up his legs, curling around his chest, to scorch at his neck - they leave no marks. 

He burns, unnoticed. 

She doesn't. She doesn't burn and she doesn't say a word, his angel of mercy comes too late. Too late for his parents. Too late for the boy who drops to his knees a few feet away, screaming against the nothingness. 

Pools of sapphire and amethyst shine bright within the streaks of blood across her face - it still drips from the mighty greatsword clutched in an equally bloody hand. But still -  _ still _ , she says nothing. She only watches him.

Until he crumbles, until the sob rips from his chest, his throat.

-

-

-

There is nothing but darkness.

He's used to it, his orc lineage has granted him the gift of seeing in such conditions, but even that doesn't help. Not when an endless abyss awaits him, calling to him like a distorted lullaby, deep beneath the waves. 

It is all-encompassing, a void that stretches on to eternity above him, below him, all around him. So deep… so heavy… he's not sure he's ever seen anything else, not sure he's ever known anything else.

There is only the depths.

There is no Fjord.

… until there is. A soft, twinkle of light - life shining through the oil of death, reaching and twisting, stretching towards him. A ballerina of hope. His lungs constrict painfully in his chest, they knot at the base of his esophagus until his whole back is straining, reaching, reaching for the light…

A little brown hand reflects back at him. Their fingers brush against each other - her thick, dark hair is a messy halo around her, and still, light breaks through to shine off the buttons of her necklace. She's small (too small, too small, the size of a little orphaned half-blood), covered in colourful swatches of clothes that chase more of the darkness away. 

Fjord's chest heaves against itself again - like claws trying to rip it apart, like the ocean itself wants to tear through him.

But his eyes stay locked with the halfling's. He's…  _ terrified _ , his whole body strains and trembles, he  _ knows _ he's about to die, about to drown at the bottom of the sea. The fight in him is gone, though.

What's the point?

Nobody will miss a nobody, only ever.

Why fight?

_ "Because it's  _ **_my_ ** _ life!" _

The voice is garbled, half-drowned, and squawked out with a harsh grating quality that has his eyes opening again. The halfling twists and writhes in the water, her body  _ fights _ , she  _ fights _ , and rages against the darkness. Stubborn - indignant, and clinging so tightly to herself.

A fire lit, deep within the sea.

He eyes the button necklace - weird.  _ Unique.  _

_ Personal. _

Fjord starts kicking his legs.

-

-

-

They've been gone for… a while. Measuring time isn't exactly his strong suit but he pays attention (he notices, he always notices, even when they don't want him to). It's been too many seasons.

He runs his fingers over the grey foliage, watching it turn to dust beneath his touch and drift away in the wind. 

Decadence leeches ever closer to his home, bitter like ashe against the tongue. He prefers it sweet. Like honey in a tea.

Caduceus blinks - he's back in front of the cemetery, his teapot boiling on the fire. Two cups sit on the little table he brought out earlier and he tries to remember if he's expecting company.

_ (How many seasons? Don't forget to count.) _

"Dope garden you got there, my dude," a rough voice grumbles from across the firepit. A dark chin juts out towards some of the closer graves. "I like the dead people, it's got a badass aesthetic."

"They make the best tea."

She snorts. "I don't think they're doing much anymore, never mind making tea."

Pink eyebrows bump and Caduceus takes a sip. A quietness hangs between the two. Peaceful. Soft.

"Oh, gross! I was gonna drink that shit!"

He waves a hand towards the empty seat-

_ (How many rings of dust?  _

_ No, time is not a tree. That's not how that works.) _

-and smiles gently. This part is easy, talking to the people has always been his strong suit. Not time. Never time. How many suits does he have now? "Are you here for services?"

"No."

"Oh. Are you lost?” That happens sometimes, too. Dead or alive, people will always wander where they shouldn’t.

_ "No _ , I'm just… fuckin'... I don't know, I'm avoiding my family."

"I can't find them."

She tilts her head.

"They should have been back by now," he tells her and the grey sinks in. Deep, deep in his chest, corrupting the pink of his heart and turning it to ash. Dust, too caged to drift. "Why haven't they come back?"

"Maybe they're tea."

"Maybe they don't want to come back."

They both linger in the silence of his admittance.

She sniffs and brushes the back of her hand off her nose. "Fuck 'em, then."

"I love them."

"That's why it hurts." She hesitates, a brown and blue presence in the corner of his eye as she finally takes the teacup that was offered to her. "Now, what are you going to do about it?"

-

-

-

Yellow eyes stare back at her - a rippling nightmare where her reflection once tormented her. And now, now it  _ haunts. _ Jagged glass in the place of her smile, hard bone where once soft flesh was loving cushion for her son to sleep on. A mother  _ (a mother, a mother, a mother) _ turned monster. 

Green fingers tremble over the surface of the river that she sits in - so calm, so tranquil now, like death. No more thrashing, no more screaming, no more fighting. She can hear that laughter, the cackling and snarling and yipping from the riverbanks, from the goblins that surround her. 

But it doesn't reach.

It's drowned out by the ache in her chest.

Not her chest.

The water ripples and a man sits up in front of her, breaches the surface in one smooth motion. Dirt and grime hide the beauty that's buried underneath and what it doesn't, the scars distract from. She almost doesn't see his weird eyes, the endless red-

**_Empty._ **

They're hollow and frightened, they stare back at her and fill, fill with all she was, all she lost. The more she looks, the less she feels like herself, and she surges forward, her hands grab at his dishevelled shirt.

...

Not her hands.

She sits back, instead. Stares into those strange eyes and watches him look around, as if for the first time in his life. Dark purple curls weighted down by the earth that clings to them, he raises a hand to stare at it with wonder. He opens his mouth, once, twice - but says nothing, just looks. 

Back at her. For more,  _ always more, haven’t they taken enough from her? _ He searches for what lingers beneath this new face, he leans forward and she doesn’t stop him, let’s him inch closer, and closer, and closer.

Let's the echoes of who she was… who she lost… let's them fill up this empty man. What does it matter - if she can't go back?

She's not who she was, she's just… not.

-

-

-

"Bluud! Bluud, open the door! I promise I won't sneak down again, Bluud!"

Her blue fists beat against the door, once, twice, three times  _ (the echo, the echo, what is that echo?) _ \- and it opens. The beastly man steps inside, staring down at her with equal parts frustration and amusement. "This is what you said last time, Little One."

"Yeah but I was lying that time."

He snorts - or huffs, she's never really sure. His face doesn't change much, doesn't reflect emotions that good. Momma says that he’s hard to read and. And something about that sticks in her mind. Momma can’t read him because he doesn’t show how he really feels. 

A large hand rests on her shoulder. "Oh, in that case."

_ "If you jab your fork in his knee, it will give you enough time to dart down the stairs,"  _ the girl whispers with the lilt of a laugh. "Are you fast?"

Jester turns and blue melts into purple. "N-no, hi! I can hide real good, though. Hi! Wow! Hi. Did I say that already?'

"You could learn to be fast. Practice until they can't catch you anymore, can't trap you anymore."

The bells in her horns jingle when she tilts her head, little blue brows furrowing. Over her shoulder, she can  _ feel _ Bluud pick her up and carry her back towards her bed, even as she stands here with her new friend. "I'm not trapped."

"But you can't leave." The girl looks around the room, she raises a hand to scratch at the freshly cut hair on the back of her head. It’s choppy and uneven, and  _ obviously _ nobody helped her with it. Momma could, Momma is good at cutting hair. "And you want to."

"Not forever!"

"You should have the option."

She huffs. "I don't  _ want _ the option, I want to stay with momma forever!"

"You're not a very good liar," the girl says with a heft of her shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. "But you're cute and sweet. I bet people trust you."

"Maybe. Why are you here?"

"I'm hiding."

"Oh! I'm very good at hiding!" 

Finally, a smile cracks across the girl's face. "Can you help me?'

"Of course!"

-

-

-

Blood smears across Yasha's jaw, she drags her wrist against it and  _ impales  _ her sword into the ground soaked with red - her hands tremble as the world bleeds beneath her. His chuckle carries on a wind sparking with electricity, burns at the base of her skull and echoes on, and on, and on within her.

Fanning the flames of grief and loss and  **_rage…_ **

But it’s so hard to burn against an ocean breeze almost strong enough to take her off her feet. She collapses to her knees at the edge of the cliff, staring out at the endless ocean, the chaotic, choppy waves smashing against the base down below. Lightning cracks across the sky beyond, has the heavens and the earth lighting up in a split second - a flash and a field of bodies behind her.

“The dead only linger when the willing refuse to let them go,” a very tall, pink man tells her gently. He kneels beside her - warm and fuzzy against her shoulder as he stares out towards the horizon. “Let her rest, don’t put this on her.”

“You don’t know her.” Even covered in blood, covered in gore, in the shadow of the horror she’s wrought, Yasha has a soft voice. 

This stranger is nonplussed. In fact, he barely reacts, he doesn’t scream or run from her or Obann. He remains. Kind. “But you do.”

Zuala flashes behind Yasha's closed eyes. Her smile, always big and bright and full of joy. Her smirk, a mischievous glint of teeth and a crinkle of her dark eyes. Her laugh, free.  _ Free.  _ Yasha has never felt more free than in the wake of Zuala's laughter, has never felt such  _ light _ grace her life. 

What has she done?

Darkness follows where she goes.

A smoke black sky trailing behind her. Blocking out the light her mate brought into this tragic world. Ruining her memory, souring it,  _ twisting _ it. "I didn't mean to," she whispers - and cracks. 

Her voice.

Her heart.

Her soul.

A large, warm hand rests on her shoulder, it chases away the chill of death itself, seeps into her skin, into her bones. "It's time to mourn."

"I can't." Yasha lifts her head and looks at the man, into his pink eyes so bright it doesn't make sense that he's  _ here _ , with  _ her. _ "He won't let me go."

The man stands. Offers his hand and, for someone so thin, someone who looks so easy to break (too easy to break, she will break him, she will break them all), he lifts her to her feet quite easily. "He doesn't have a choice."

"Where will I go?"

"Only ever where we're supposed to. Life makes that easy for us, I suppose. A small mercy."

Her hand tightens in his. Thunder booms distantly. "There is no mercy in this world."

"Then bring some to it."

-

-

-

Colour breaches the nothingness, it rips open his skull and burrows down, down, down beneath the surface of a dirt covered heart. His lungs expand for the first time  _ (not the first, they’ve done it so many times before, so many lives before) _ and he tastes - bitter copper. 

When he spits, it’s clumps of mud and blood mixed together, his insides hacked out into the palms of his hands. 

His hands?

Vibrantly purple hands, just purple, only purple.  _ (They need more, more colour, all of the colours, all of them. Bury him in colour again, oh please.) _ He curls the fingers in, watches the mess drip between them to the shallow grave he sits in. When is a door not a door? 

“You are filthy."

Smoke curls around the ankles of a man standing too straight. His boots are too clean, too nice - the golden buckles glint in the light.  _ He _ wants those boots. Nice boots.

Blue explodes before, burns and scorches as it glares within. The man - crouched down just beside this grave, leans in to inspect him. To scrutinize him with unkind eyes. (No. Not unkind. Ashamed.  _ Hurt. _ ) "And new. Untouched by the one in the grave," he says thoughtfully. Almost dismissively, as if he doesn't actually see the empty man before him. "Filthy but cleansed of the life you had, of the things you did. Hmm.”

The hand that is offered to him is charred, it's covered in soot with sparkly rocks poking out. They dig into purple skin, but the burning man pulls him from his grave, pats down his tattered shirt, and brushes back the wild, wavy curls. "E...em-pty…" His voice is hoarse, the grimy blood drips down the corners of his mouth and has him coughing.

Coughing, coughing, coughing.

_ Suffocating. _

"Ja. Brand new, my friend." The flames pat at his back, his new… friend? He rubs soothing circles until he can help him straighten up again. Dust puff out as he gives one solid, reassuring thud against an empty chest. "This dream keeps haunting me, it will not leave me alone."

He clears his throat - clutches to a shoulder clad in a very nice, very red coat. "E-Em…" he grimaces and coughs again, but he doesn't let go.

Doesn't give in

"That's it. Keep trying, you are doing well." Blue scorches red, the flames cradle a purple jaw so gently that it doesn't even burn. "I've been having this dream. That a woman will come pull me from my own grave, but… I’m not sure I’d know how to live again."

The empty man staggers forward, his arms collapsing through vacant air. Left alone with nothing but a shallow grave and a throat full of dirt.

-

-

-

"I thought you said you were good at hiding."

Jester scowls at her, shoving her down and towards the bed. Her friend gets the hint, she drops to her elbows, laying flat against the floor, to drag herself beneath - barely. In a blink, Jester is simply  _ there _ , on her back beside the girl. It’s dark, they’re both hard to see, just a reflection of purple and blue of their eyes, as far as any human sees. “I’m, like,  _ super _ good at hiding. Your house is too big.”

“I know. Not many places to hide. I usually run,” she replies in a rough whisper. Her voice is… hoarse. Like she’s been screaming all day. “What?”

Heat creeps up Jester’s neck. “Nothing! Stop staring at me!”

“You people are-”

“You  _ people?! _ Tieflings? Are you racist?! Am I helping a racist?” Jester gasps.

The girl jabs her elbow into Jester’s ribs, maybe accidentally, until her arm is jammed between the floor and the bed in a painful angle. “Shush! Shh! I’m not-” She grunts and lowers her voice. Scoots closer until their shoulders press together. “I’m not a racist. I mean, you know, the people who are there and aren’t there. You and that furry guy.”

“Oh.” She traces the sharp cheekbones, the track marks from tears dragged down through dirt. An azure anger simmering beneath curiosity, beneath a subtle relief. "Is this real?"

"I'm not sure my imagination would question itself…" Her face scrunches up (cute, cute,  _ oh my _ ) and she shrugs, bumps her forehead against the bottom of the bed. "I guess that means it's gotta be. Fuck."

"What?"

"I gave that other dude some shitty advice." She closes her eyes and sighs. "And I was kinda a dick to you earlier. Before. Sorry."

Jester smiles shyly and wishes she could turn onto her side. She slips her hand into a much warmer one, instead. "It was pretty funny."

"Yeah?" Daylight shines through the crack she opens her eye to. "My name is Beau."

"I'm Jester. Where are we?"

"One of the guest rooms."

Her smile grows and she squeezes the hand that clutches hers just a little too tightly. "No, where  _ are _ we? I wanna come visit one day. For real."

"No." The hand is yanked from hers and Beau is digging her fingers into the floor-

_ (They tear through the earth as she's dragged back home, one rainy night. She screams and claws at the ground,  _ **_cursing_ ** _ her father as her friend is tossed into the back of the guards' wagon.) _

to pull herself from under the bed, so she can stand up and straighten her clothes. "Hupperdook. Well. Close, just outside. But you shouldn't come here, it's not." Beau smiles but it's wrong - lies linger between her teeth, better than Jester's. (She takes note, watches the way Beau says them, watches the way she clears her face) "It's not fun like the coast is. I'll come to you."

"You're not allowed to leave," Jester whispers, perched on the edge of the bed. Her eyes close, only a heartbeat, and she's at the window. Watching one of the servants dragging Beau by her wrist back to the front door - her nose bloody and dress ruined. "You're not ever allowed to leave."

"A comfy cage is just as confining," Beau snaps at her. Wrenches her back away from the window. "Momma's love will chain you down, just as sure as these bars."

Cold iron across an otherwise beautiful bedroom window. 

Jester frowns. "You're being mean again."

"Nobody loves a secret."

"Somebody will love you, Beau! I don't care what you say and how mean you get, I don't care if you keep pushing me away, I know what you're doing and I know what it means! I can see you!"

The door slams shut behind her new friend. Beau's footsteps - fast (she'll never stop running if she isn't careful) fade down the hall. She stops, jerks to a halt with surprise, only when she sees Jester in her bedroom. By her window. “Why are you here?”

“You need my help.”

Beau grits her teeth. “I don’t-”

“You came to me,” Jester reminds her. Steps forward to  _ jab _ her in the shoulder, feels her tail swishing angrily behind her, and she’s not really sure why she’s angry. She feels like a mirror, as Beau’s cheeks darken, as her brows furrow and she jerks forward again. “You started this!”

Hands clench into fists-

_ Weapons that will befall even gods. That will pry allies and friends from the jaws of monsters. That will be the only thing between life and death. When swords break. When magic fails. When people fall.  _

_ She will be their weapon. _

“I did  _ not!”  _ Her fists squeeze into themselves tighter, nails settling into the grooves that will one day fade into scars that nobody will notice anymore.  _ “You _ called to  _ me!  _ Pouting, and pouting, and  _ pouting _ for me to open the door!”

Jester swallows an anger that isn’t her own. “I was talking to Bluud, I didn’t even know you existed, Beau!”

“Then pretend I don’t and just leave!”

“That’s not what you want!”

A vicious laugh, full of malice that tastes sour on her tongue. “You don’t know what I want.”

“Yes, I do!” Jester gasps. Feels the heat in her chest - watches Beau’s eyes drop to her lips and shoot back up. “Oh. Oh, Beau.”

_ “Get out of my head!” _ she snarls and  _ shoves _ Jester back into the bed. “What the shit-?”

Purple eyes stare down at her. Jester pins her against the mattress with a sort of surprised look. “It’s okay, you know. They’re wrong. Love is always right, my momma says. She has female clients-”

“Get off!” Beau bucks her hips and drops a shoulder, using the momentum to toss Jester off and try to reverse their positions.

Neither of them are really sure how Jester ends up on top again. She smiles (the anger is gone, a reflection of embarrassment in her purple cheeks) and leans down on her hands against the soft bed. Beau stares up at her with wide eyes. “I should go, my momma will be coming up to say goodnight soon.”

“Sure.”

Beau swallows hard, looks between her eyes - rests her hands on cool blue thighs. Blue hair tickles the sides of her face. “Don’t let them change you. I like- this, I like you," the tiefling murmurs.

“I know. I-I can feel it,” she whispers.

Her hands are in Jester’s hair, blue threaded between brown fingers.  _ (Warm. Soft. How many times has she done this? _

_ How many times will she do this?) _

Jester licks her lips. Their noses brush against each other - Beau’s heart swells in her chest, Jester’s stutters in her own. “It should be real-”

“-this is real, Jes.”

Their foreheads touch, the tiefling closes her eyes. “I don’t want to wake up.”

“We’re not asleep,” Beau promises. Her hands fall through empty air, a hiccup caught in her throat as she springs up in the bed - angry tears already streaking down her cheeks. “It’s real.”

It’s real.

(Isn’t it?)

-

-

-

When a connection is formed, distance doesn’t matter.


End file.
